As it prepares to
launch its first full mass-market EV next year -- a plug-in
Ford Focus -- Ford has its eyes set on a large-scale
rollout. By 2015, Ford hopes to have "electrified"
vehicles -- hybrids (HEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEV), and
battery-electric vehicles (BEV; aka "all electric"
vehicles) -- make up 2-5 percent of its total sales. This is an
ambitious but seemingly achievable goal -- the company currently has
about 1 percent of its sales consist of electrified vehicles
(hybrids).

The company's target for 2020 is much bolder; it
say that it wants to boost this number to 10 to 25 percent. It
plans on roughly 70 percent of those being hybrids, with the
remainder being plug-in electrics and fuel cell vehicles.

Key
to these efforts is to perfect hybrid, pure electric, and fuel cell
systems for the C platform. This platform is Ford's largest,
selling approximately 2 million of the 4.817 million units that Ford
sold last year. Ford has over 12 different body styles --
including the Focus, Transit Connect, C-Max, S-Max, and others --
which serve as "hats" to the underlying C platform.

Ford's
director of global electrification, Nancy Gioia states, "During
this volatile period, by utilizing our highest volume platforms, by
having common parts between hybrids and plug in hybrids we are doing
the most to make this as affordable as possible during a very dynamic
time."

This approach not only saves Ford money in
production costs, but it should also help the company obtain its
electric vision. Ford will need those savings -- it plans on
complete four generations worth of batteries within the next ten
years.

Gioia says that Ford is incredible committed and
focused on its electric efforts. She comments, "There must
be a national and actually global constancy of purpose on this
journey. We are on a marathon, a 50-year journey, we are not on a 3-5
year journey. This takes an enormous amount of staying power."

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I don't put very many miles on my car, currently 77K over 8 years, so I tend keep my cars for a long time.

Besides price, my major concern is how long the batteries will last. My current car should have no problem lasting another 8 years, but if it was a hybred, the batteries would likely have to be replaced before then at great expense.

As he said, his car is 8 years old, he would have had to replace the battery set before the 8 year mark (speculation), thus making the electric/hybrid significantly more expensive to own based on maintenance costs only.

This is why I keep thinking that the car manufacturers need to get together, and design easily changeable battery packs for these all-electric and hybrid vehicles. Imagine how much the cost would go down, and how much more popular the cars might be, if people knew that they could be on a trip, stop by a local battery exchange place, receive a freshly charged battery in exchange for their depleted one, and pay a reasonable fee for the convenience.

Instead, we have all these auto manufacturers, and each one of them has their own battery packs, that you can only get through them. Perhaps by the time these packs need to be changed out, there will be OEM matching manufacturers, or companies that take batteries out of wrecked vehicles and recondition them, but having maybe a half dozen varieties of batteries would sure simplify things for the end consumer, imho.

Of course, when's the last time the automotive manufacturers cared about simplifying things for the consumer? (eye roll)

quote: Of course, when's the last time the automotive manufacturers cared about simplifying things for the consumer? (eye roll)

Ford has been working to standardize battery design so they can have one battery type to use on all of its vehicles. Also their production lines and vehicles, like the Focus, are being setup so they use the same platform and can produce a gas only, hybrid, and electric only one after the other without stopping. This will significantly improve reaction times to market demands and lower consumer costs due to parts commonality. http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25540/

The other cars from GM and Nissan are unique platforms that are monolithic in design and production.

OK, Ford and many others have said how they want X number of cars to be EVs, or hybrid, or battery whatever cars by some future year - in the future.WILL THEY MAKE US BUY ONE?I for one do not want a battery anything.Where I live the temp goes below -20°F and no battery powered anything will survive that temp and get me to work 30 miles away.I'll be using gas for the future until fuel cells are cheap!

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